Command & Destroy

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2008 looks like the year for real-time strategy. A first look at DSI's title.

By Craig Harris

A long, long time ago – like four years – we ran a preview of a real-time strategy game in the works for the Game Boy Advance called, uncreatively enough, Command and Destroy. The title was a project in the works by Cypron Studios development studio who had yet sold a publisher on the idea of releasing the title for the GBA…and, obviously due to its lack of release the problem persisted. However, the game has resurfaced, not as a Game Boy title but as a full-fledged Nintendo DS product. Destination Software will publish it this year.

Command and Destroy for the Nintendo DS hits a genre that's been surprisingly lacking on the handheld. It's surprising since it seems that the handheld, what with its dual-display focus, it's mouse-control like touch screen, and its wireless networking, would be much more friendly to the real-time strategy design. It certainly won't be the first RTS, and it also won't be the only one in the first half of the year: Majesco will offer up its own unique take with Eco-Creatures: Save the Forest in just a few weeks.

For Command and Destroy, the development team is clearly taking inspiration (as well as two thirds of its title) from Westwood Studios' classic Command & Conquer. Top-down perspective, point-and-click interface. As the story goes, there are two factions – Human and Alien -- at war in deep space, and players can choose to lead either of these races to victory. Like most real-time strategy games, the idea is to locate and collect resources that can be converted into vehicles, soldiers, and structures that will fortify the team's side. Build up the army and take out the other fortress and you're good to go.

According to Destination Software, Command and Destroy will also support the Nintendo DS system's wireless networking so that each of the two sides can be controlled by an actual human player.

Command and Destroy is scheduled for an early 2008 launch. We'll have a full review of the game when it ships.